Sunday, 9 January 2011

A Little Mad

The wind and rocks know the rain
Is sending a message that words won't begin to explain...

...little one, little Cape Sparrow, bobbing and chirping his pleasure at rye bread crumbs with tomato and lettuce. Sometimes, he'll leave me a wing feather in return for the treats. And sometimes, he'll just communicate his pleasure at a particular range of succulent eats.
....the mesembryanthemums straggling through the concrete wall in particularly bright purple flower - but I, being a dud in horticulture, don't know what they are. So I ask. The plants. "Vygies" was the answer - and yes, that translates as mesembryanthemum in gardeners' lingo.

Ten years ago I would have thought you were a little mad if you had told me you talk to plants and birds. Five years ago I would have looked for the tin foil helmet. Today I talk with animals and plants as often as I can. We are all trapped together in this steel and concrete experimental box called civilisation, and not many of us communicate with each other any more.

This is theLanguage Older Than Words. This is the Other Way of Knowing. This is not science - and thank gods for that - or even science's red-haired stepchild. This is totally Other to the way we have become - each separate, lonely individual beating without realising it upon the bars and walls of the cage, each hoping for a heartbeat to be heard in return, an answering voice which does more than spin wheel-shaped lights in the sky.

The exit is plain to see, if you have the eyes to behold it. Right there, in range of your nose, your ears, your outstretched hand....But very few of us are taking the time to turn the inside outward, to look where we're told we're not supposed to, to listen to what we're told doesn't exist. Fear limits us - fear of looking and sounding ridiculous before our peers. But who, I ask you, are our true peers? Your office-job manager, or that Cape Sparrow thanking you for the gift of breakfast?

Breath in the lungs is the world passing through us
Over and over again
Ancient as sunlight, connected in body
The Mind becomes sky and the rain passes through ...